Teach Our Daughters Well

A new documentary looks at the promise, and lost opportunities, in education for girls worldwide.

GIRL RISEN: Senna, one of nine girls followed in Girl Rising, a documentary about the benefits of educating the world’s women, holds a poetry medal she won in La Rinconada, Peru. “Poetry is how I turn ugliness into art,” she says in the film. - IMAGE: Gina Nemirofsky

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Outside the United States, losing out on an education means much more than poor job prospects.

Girl Rising, a
new documentary opening in Portland on March 7, makes the case that
educating girls has a tangible effect not just on an individual woman
but on the entire community and even the nation where she lives.

According to the
documentary, an additional year of schooling improves a young woman’s
earnings as an adult by 20 percent. In India, an increase of 1 percent
in the number of girls attending secondary school would raise the
nation’s gross domestic product by $5 billion.

But the film, by Oscar-nominated director Richard Robbins, shows how difficult getting that added year can be.

The movie follows nine girls from all over the world through the challenges they face in getting an education.

The documentary
follows one girl, Senna, from Peru, who lives under the threat of sex
work. The film says 80 percent of human trafficking victims are girls.

Girl Rising
also follows Amina, from Afghanistan, who was married off at age 11.
Fourteen million girls worldwide under the age of 18 will walk down the
aisle this year, and the No. 1 killer of women between the ages of 15
and 19 is childbirth.

The March 7 premiere
at the World Trade Center features a panel discussion, including Wendy Hawkins,
executive director of the Intel Foundation, which provided the financial
backing for Girl Rising; Elizabeth Nye, executive director of
Girls Inc. of Northwest Oregon, a life-skills program; and Chane Griggs,
assistant director for offender management and rehabilitation at the
Oregon Department of Corrections.

The premiere is sold out. (Other screenings, including on March 7 at Cinema 21 are being scheduled through the crowd-sourcing distribution company gathr.us.) So WW spoke with three of the panelists about what they see as the most pressing education issues for girls.

WW: What are the biggest changes that can be made to improve girls’ education in Portland?

Wendy Hawkins: A lot of parents are not comfortable going
to talk to teachers to be an advocate for their daughter. An open door
between school and home is really critical, and it requires public
support and encouragement.

It can’t just be up to the school and educators to keep an eye out for girls who fall between the cracks.

Elizabeth Nye: I think we can recognize the importance of a
girls-only environment, for girls to explore their interests and
passions.

Boys traditionally
play Legos and move into building and robotics. You throw a girl into
that environment and she begins to doubt herself.

What’s the biggest obstacle for improving education for girls here?

Hawkins: Some of the issues we see in the film are
unlikely to be faced by American girls. Others are unfortunately all too
common. There are girls outside of the U.S. who are, because of the
dire poverty their families face, pulled into sex labor and enforced
labor. We know that this occurs in Portland too.

Nye:We have a phrase, “Believing
in the inherent rights and abilities of girls.” We project all of these
things on girls. I’d love to see a society that accepts girls for
themselves, rather than putting them in boxes.

Girls need to see
women in positions of leadership. They need examples. I have two
daughters, one 9 and one 8 years old. I look at my daughters and think,
“They have access to everything.”

We were having a
conversation over dinner, and my daughter turned to me and asked, “Can a
woman be governor?” I’m looking at her and thinking, “She has access to
everything, and she is still doubting herself.” It’s important to see
women in positions of leadership, for girls to see, “I could do that.”

How does a lack of education impact the state’s prison population?

Chane Griggs: About 38 percent of our population, both
male and female, comes into our custody without even a GED. Most of our
women are in for things like identity theft and property crime. Those
are not crimes of passion, those are crimes of needing money.

If someone has an education and they have a job, they are constructively living in our communities and not committing crime.

We offer basic skills-development that helps people withlow
reading and math levels to prepare for the GED. We have college classes
and vocational opportunities, including hairstyling, barista classes,
eyeglass refinishing, and welding. Those are all either paid for by the
inmate or by donors.

How can getting an education early on make the difference down the road?

Griggs:Our hope is that with the right education, those women never come to us.